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THE part played by the North of Scotland in the War of Independence has
been consistently ignored by Scottish historians. They have always taken
it for granted that the War of Independence was won by the Lowlands of
Scotland, though they have not explained how and whence Bruce obtained
the adherents who made his early successes, and consequently his
ultimate success, possible. Professor Hume Brown, in his history, does
not discuss the point. Mr. Andrew Lang observes: But we still ask, how
did he achieve any success? The nation as a whole was not yet with him
(that his later forfeitures of his enemies proves) ; patriotism,
properly speaking, was as yet rudimentary. The Commons had fallen away
after Wallace’s death; of the nobles some were indifferent, many were
bitterly hostile, holding Bruce in deadly feud. Rome, since 1304. no
ally, was now an embittered foe, because of Bruce's sacrilege, and he
lay under excommunication—then, and much later, a terrible position. Who
composed Bruce’s forces while he wandered in Galloway? A few knights,
probably, with some hundreds of broken men from Kyle, Annandale,
Carrick, and the Isles. Sir Herbert Maxwell, writing of Bruce’s campaign
against the Earl of Buchan, says: ‘For several months after this we hear
no more of either Bruce or Buchan. It is quite likely that Buchan’s
inactivity was the result of the growing popularity of Bruce and the
idea of independence. failing some such reason, it seems amazing that
such a favourable chance of capturing or crushing the of the Scots was
allowed to slip. It seems clear, therefore, that these writers are
unable to explain who formed the armies which Bruce led to victory. Mr.
Andrew Lang, however, goes a step further. In an appendix to the first
volume of his history, headed ‘The Celts in the War of Independence,’ he
says: ‘The War of Independence was won by the Lowland Scots (in origin
many of English descent) lighting under the standards of leaders more or
less Norman by blood. There is not, I think, historical evidence to
support so emphatic a statement.
Bruce’s ultimate success was made possible— indeed was secured, not by
the support which he obtained from the Lowland Scots or in the Lowlands,
but by the support he obtained in the north and in the other parts of
Celtic Scotland. At the first glance this may seem a rash statement, and
I do not wish to be understood to imply that Bruce obtained no support
in the Lowlands. But it seems to me that the centre of his strength was
in the north and not in the south, in Celtic and not in Lowland
Scotland.
It is remarkable that no fortress of importance in the Lowlands of
Scotland was captured by Bruce or his adherents until 1312. In that year
Buittie, Dalswinton, Caerlaverock, and Lochmaben were captured; Perth,
Dumfries, and Linlithgow fell in the following year, and Roxburgh and
Edinburgh about the same time. Dundee was certainly in English hands as
late as 1312, while Stirling and Bothweil did not surrender until after
Bannockburn. On the other hand, by the middle of 1309 Scotland north of
the Tay, with the exception of Perth and Dundee, was entirely in Bruce’s
hands, were the Celtic part of Scotland south of the Tay was held by
Douglas and Edward Bruce, and formed the base from which the Scots
carried the war into the enemy’s country.
When Bruce was crowned at Scone in March 1300, he had no more devoted
adherent than David de Moravia, Bishop of Moray. The bishop was a member
of the powerful and patriotic house of Moray, the only noble house which
had stood by Wallace after the surrender of the Scottish nobility on 9th
July, 1297. Immediately Bruce was crowned King, the Bishop of Moray
preached a Holy War throughout the length and breadth of his diocese
with such effect that the men of Moray flew to Bruce's standard. After
Methven the bishop had to flee for his life, and Edward issued
peremptory orders to his Generals in Scotland to make every effort to
effect his capture. The bishop, however, succeeded in reaching Orkney,
and there, as I shall endeavour to show, he almost certainly met Bruce
in the winter of 1306-1307. The old Scottish historians have it that
Bruce spent that winter in the island of Rachrin, though the English
chroniclers state that he went to Norway, and that Rachrin itself was
the property of a close ally of the English King. The English fleet,
too, was scouring the western seas, leaving no nook or cranny unexplored
in its efforts to find him. The English version of his flight to Norway
is, therefore, the more likely to be true; but it did not find much
acceptance in Scotland until the recent discovery of documents, which
show that Bruce’s sister was married to the Norwegian king. That
discovery at least confirms the English statement that Bruce did spend
the winter of 1306-07 in Norway.
In the spring of 1307 Bruce landed in Arran, whence he made his famous
raid on the south-west of Scotland, which culminated in the victory of
Loudon Hill. Now there is in existence a letter written from Forfar on
the 15th of May of that year, in which the writer says: ‘Sir Robert
Bruce never had the goodwill of his own followers, or of the people at
large, or even half of them, so much with him as now. And they firmly
believe, by the encouragement of the false preachers who come from the
host, that Sir Robert de Bruce will now have his will. If Sir Robert de
Brus can escape any way or towards the parts of Ross he will find them
all ready at his will more entirely than ever. Now what does that mean?
It can only mean that there was a movement on Bruce’s behalf in the
north and north-east of Scotland prior to the Battle of Loudon Hill, and
that the preachers were at their old work of stirring up the people to
support his cause. In the previous year we have it on Edward’s own
authority that the Bishop of Moray had roused ‘the flock of his
bishopric’ by preaching a Holy War. The bishop had fled to Orkney. Bruce
had sought an asylum in Norway. And as soon as the winter is over, we
find Bruce trying to rally his own men of Carrick to his support, and
‘preachers’ rousing the north. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is
that Bruce’s descent on the south-west of Scotland was no mere accident,
no forlorn hope, but was part of a plan arranged at Orkney or Norway
with the Bishop of Moray, that plan being that Bruce was to raise his
own earldom of Carrick, while the bishop raised the province of Moray.
Bruce’s exploits and successes are a matter of history; but that these
formed only a part of a well-laid plan has never hitherto been
suggested. If confirmation of the existence of such a plan is needed, we
find it in another well-known fact, Bruce’s expedition to the north in
the autumn of 1307. Previous writers have dealt with that expedition,
but have failed to explain it. Mr. Lang says: ‘Bruce moved to the north,
where, as the Forfar letter shows, he had hopes of finding partisans;
while Sir Herbert Maxwell observes: 'He moved northwards in order to
raise the people in the national cause.’ But why northwards? Why not to
the east or to the midlands, where he would have been in touch wiih his
victorious friends in the south-west? And what hopes of finding
partisans had he? Why in the north were the people showing signs of
rising in his favour prior to the Battle of Loudon Hill? Because he was
a hunted fugitive in the southwest? There is only one possible answer.
The north held out no indefinite hopes. The north was ready; his friends
had done their work. Bruce’s presence alone was required to fan the
flame they had kindled into a fierce blaze. Then, as for centuries
before and for centuries later, the north was the home of desperate
causes. So Bruce answered the call, hastened north with a few trusty
followers, and, by so doing, won the independence of Scotland.
It was in September or October 1307 that Bruce crossed the Grampians.
Barbour makes him meet there Sir Alexander and Simon Fraser, ‘with all
the folk that with thaim had,’ and immediately proceed to Inverurie. At
Inverurie Bruce fell ill, and lay for several weeks in danger of his
life. His force was not yet large, Inverurie was not well protected, and
the Earl of Buchan and Sir David de Brechin were at hand with a large
following. So Edward Bruce deemed it advisable to remove the sick King
to the greater security—and the greater hardships—of the hill country of
Strathbogie. Buchan and de Brechin followed; the latter attacked Bruce’s
outposts, and Bruce, rising from his sick-bed at the news of the brush,
led his men against his foes, where they lay in fancied security near
Inverurie on Christmas Eve, 1307, not on 22nd May, 1308, as later
historians have averred. For, as we shall presently see, Bruce was in
the Earl of Ross’s territories on the latter date. The victory of
Inverurie was followed by the ‘Hership of Buchan,’ by the capture of
Aberdeen, and by the winning of the whole of the modern counties of
Aberdeen and Kincardine to the cause of Independence. By the end of July
Bruce’s lieutenants had completed the work so well begun, and in all
Scotland north of the Tay only Dundee Castle and Perth were held for
England.
Now, two questions immediately arise. Why did Bruce strike first for
Aberdeenshire? And how did he attain such success with a force which
Barbour, whose numbers are usually to be trusted, places at 700 men? The
answer to the second question is to be found in the answer to the first.
Aberdeenshire had always been friendly to Bruce and to the cause of
Independence. Bruce himself as King, as well as by descent from the Earl
of Huntingdon, was feudal superior of the Earldom of the Garioch, while
he was at the same time the naturai guardian of his nephew, the youthful
Earl of Mar, then, and for several years afterwards, a prisoner at the
English court. For Bruce’s sister Christian had married Gartney, Earl of
Mar, who died in 1306, leaving her a widow with two young children,
while Bruce himself had married in 1295 Gartney’s sister Isabel. The
Earls of Mar and the Bruces had for many years been closely connected;
and, indeed, when the elder Bruce was a competitor for the Crown, the
Earl of Mar, Earl Gartney’s father, was his chief supporter. So it was
natural that Bruce should expect to find adherents in Mar and the
Garioch. Mar, too, was one of the ancient Celtic earldoms, and as it lay
close to the Province of Moray, it had in all probability received the
attention of the Bishop of Moray and his fellow ‘preachers.’ For in the
Forfar letter, above quoted, the writer states, on the authority of ‘Sir
Reginald de Chen, Sir Duncan de Ferendrauth, and Sir Gilbert de
Glenkerni, and others who watch the peace both beyond and on this side
of the mountains,’ that the people are ready to support Bruce.
Immediately after the Hership of Buchan, Bruce advanced into the
Province of Moray. Here the influence of the Bishop was at once
apparent. The whole country ralhed to Bruce’s side, the castles held for
England were captured or gladly surrendered, and the very officials whom
Edward I. had appointed in September 1305 to govern the north in his
name came over to Bruce. Inverness Castle, the principal fortress north
of the Spey, was taken by surprise, probably before Bruce’s actual
arrival, as the whole district was strongly in his favour, and had a
brave and capable leader in the person of Alexander Pilche, the
colleague and chief lieutenant of Andrew de Moray in 1297. This
Alexander Pilche was a burgher of Inverness, and a man of great
influence in Moray. He remained constant to the cause of Independence
until its seemingly final overthrow in 1303, when, like many other
Scotsmen, he was compelled to accept the inevitable. With him Edward
followed his usual practice of endeavouring to conquer his greatest
opponents by trusting them, and we find him Governor of Inverness Castie
for England in midsummer, 1304, though by the following year he stems
for some reason to have been out of favour. In him Bruce found a staunch
supporter, and it was probably owing to his influence and skill that the
Castle of Inverness fell so easily. For the rest of his life Alexander
Pilche was high in Bruce’s favour, and he subsequently died Sheriff of
Inverness. Bruce found the Castle of Inverness a place of great
strength, and ordered it to be levelled with the ground in order that no
rallying-place might be left to the English faction in the north.4 For
the Earl of Ross was still Edward’s man.
From Inverness Bruce marched at the head of nearly three thousand men
against the man who, little more than a year before, had given signal
proof of his loyalty to England by violating the Sanctuary of St. Duthac
in Tain, and surrendering Bruce’s Queen to Edward, the Earl of Ross. Him
Bruce speedily brought to terms. During April and May he marched through
Ross, Sutherland, and Caithness, and when the Earl showed signs of
resistance, a threat to lay waste his territories proved effectual. With
the example of Buchan before him, the Earl agreed to a truce till 1st
June, 1308. These things we know from a letter still in existence from,
the Earl himself to Edward II. But if the Earl looked for help from
England he looked in vain, and at last he made a formal and complete
surrender to Bruce at Auldearn, near Nairn, on the 31st October, 1308.
Bruce treated him generously, gave him a new grant of all his lands, and
granted him, in addition, the lands of Dingwall and Ferncrosky. From
that time onwards the Earl of Ross was one of Bruce’s staunchest friends
and supporters.
The surrender at Auldearn marks the conclusion of Bruce’s campaign in
the north. It had been a wonderfully short and a wonderfully successful
campaign. Indeed, so strongly was the north on his side, that it had
been, at least north of the Spey, a practically bloodless campaign. A
few English garrisons driven out, and perhaps one or two slight
skirmishes with the Earl of Ross’s men prior to the truce in April or
May, provided the only fighting worthy the name. The witnesses to the
Earl’s surrender peffiars show best the extent to which Bruce had the
north behind him. The first witness is the patriotic Bishop of Moray,
and the second, Thomas Bishop of Ross, whose appointment to the see
Edward I. had himself approved in 1297. Then follow, among others, no
less than three of the Sheriffs whom Edward I. had appointed for
Scotland north of Aberdeen in September 1305, viz.: Sir John de Stirling,
Sheriff of Inverness, Sir William Wiseman, Sheriff of Elgin, and Sir
Walter Berkeley, Sheriff of Banff. Sir John de Stirling was a landholder
in Moray, but, it is interesting to observe, he had in 1291 leased from
Sir Robert Bruce, lord of Annandaie, all Bruce’s land in the Barony of
Inverberwn. Sir William de Haya, who was Edward’s sheriff at Inverness
in 1295-96, is also a witness, as are also Sir David de Berkeley, and
Sir John de Fenton. Sir David de Berkeley was, of course, an adherent of
Bruce from the very first, while Sir John de Fenton appears to have been
of the family of Sir William de Fenton, who married Cecilia Byset, one
ot the co-heiresses of the last Bvset of Lovat. The document is also
witnessed by Walter Heroc, Dean of Moray, William de Crewsel, precentor
of Moray, and ‘by many other nobles, clerics, and laity, assembled at
same time and place.’ These signatures prove that the north of Scotland,
noble, cleric, lay, and official, was strongly on the side of Bruce and
independence. Thus by the close of 1308 all the Highlands proper — the
most Celtic part of Scotland — had once again thrown off the English
yoke. Barely three years before Edward I. had made what he deemed a
final settlement of the Highlands, yet at the first opportunity the
church, the nobility, an the people declared for Bruce, the very
sheriffs who governed for England abandoned her cause, and the greatest
magnate in the Highlands, who was bound by the closest ties of interest
and policy to England, who had wronged Bruce more deeply than any other
man in Scotland, was compelled, whether he liked it or not, almost as
soon as Bruce appeared in the Highlands, to sue for pardon. These facts
speak for themselves, but it may be pointed out as a further indication
of the real attitude of the north, that from 1297 to 1303 Scotland north
of the Spey had been absolutely independent. In the latter year Edward
in person crushed all resistance in the north, but the very men he had
appointed to govern in his name had, most of them, been prominent on the
patriotic side down to 1303. Like the vast majority of Scotsmen
elsewhere, they had no choice but to become Edward’s men when in
1303-1304 Scottish Independence seemed at last to be finally crushed.
But the English conquest took no firm hold of the north, for the people
were not Lowland Scots in origin mainly of English descent, and they had
all the old Celtic preference for a king of their own race. Bruce was in
their eyes the rightful King of Scotland. He claimed the throne by
virtue of his descent from the old Celtic kings; his mother wa« a Celtic
princess in her own right, and his own earldom of Carrick was a Celtic
earldom. And to crown all, only three years had elapsed since the north
had last met England in battle. Then the north had been beaten but not
subdued. And, as we have seen, there were not wanting patriotic spirits
to keep the fire smouldering.
The results of the adherence to Bruce of Scotland from Caithness to the
Tay were far-reaching. With the north behind h:m Bruce was able to
proceed with the task of wresting the Lowlands and Argyle from English
hands. Between November 1308 and March 1309 he subdued the latter, while
his brother Edward secured Galloway. Affairs proceeded so favourably
that on 16th March he was able to hold his first Parliament, that
Parliament which met at St. Andrews, and drew up the letter to the King
of France declaring that Bruce was now King of Scotland. The record of
that Parliament is exceedingly interesting. Three of the great Celtic
Earls were present in person, the Earls of Ross, Lennox, and Sutherland,
while the other Celtic earldoms of Fife, Menteith, Mar, and Buchan, and
the earldom of Caithness, whose heirs, the record states, were in ward,
were represented. Bruce’s tried and trusted friends, his brother Edward,
James the Steward, Donald of Isla, Gilbert de Haya, Robert de Keith,
Thomas Randolph, Sir James Douglas, Alexander de Llndesay, William
Wiseman, David de Berkeley, and Robert Boyde, are also specifically
mentioned, while the names of Alexander of Argyle, Hugh, son and heir of
the Earl of Ross, and John de Menteith, ‘and the Barons of the whole of
Argyle and Innisgall and the inhabitants of the whole Kingdom of
Scotland.’ complete the record. Thus, of the twenty-four names mentioned
specifically in the document, no less than fourteen are representative
of the ancient Celtic Kingdom of Scotland, while several of the others
are more or less connected with the north. Some doubts have been
expressed as to the trustworthiness of the record, but the names it
gives are confirmed in a striking manner by the events I have narrated.
The Earls of Ross and Sutherland, Hugh, son and heir of the Earl of
Ross, William Wiseman, and David de Berkeley, are all mentioned in the
contemporary documents from which I have compiled my narrative, as
having been, by 31st October, 1308, of Bruce’s party, while of the
remaining names that of Alexander of Argyle is the only one doubtful.
The events I have just narrated, and the names I have given, prove, I
think, that Celtic Scotland had declared itself for Bruce at the crisis
of his fate, and three years before he made any headway in the
Anglicized Lowlands. He could only have made the headway he did in
Celtic Scotland in so short a period by the support of the people of the
country. It follows that the people who won the War of Independence were
not, as Mr. Lang says, 'Lowland Scots (in origin mainly of English
descent) fighting under standards of leaders, more or less Norman by
blood,’ but the inhabitants of the Celtic part of Scotland fighting
under leaders, many of them Celtic, and under a king whose mother was a
Celtic countess, and who claimed the crown by virtue of his descent from
a Celtic king. And I do not think it can be disputed that, if Bruce had
not secured the support of the north in 1308, the independence of
Scotland would not have been won. From the north he obtained men and
staunch support when he needed both most. From Celtic Scotland in the
west his armies raided England. From Celtic Scotland in the north and
west he captured one by one the strongholds or the Scottish Lowlands.
For it cannot be denied that it was not until he had Celtic Scotland
behind him that the strongholds of the south fell. Lanark was held for
England as late as October 1310, while in 1312 the whole of the Lothians
and a large part of Scotland south of the Forth were in English hands.
There were English garrisons in Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Stirling,
Bothwell, Linlithgow, Dunbar, Yester, Luffenok, Dirieton, Kirkintilloch,
Selkirk, Jedburgh, Livingston, Lochmaben, Bulttle, Dalswinton, Dumfries,
Caerlaverock, and Cavres, as well as in Perth and Dundee, and English
sheriffs still ruled in Berwick, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, Haddington,
Linlithgow, Stirling, and Perth.
It is interesting to observe that the narrative as 1 have told it is
borne out by Barbcur, in a passage often quoted, but always with the
comment that nothing is known of events in the north. The passage is as
follows (the poet has just described the Hership of Buchan):
‘The King than till his pess has tane
The north cuntreys, that humbly
Obeysyt till his senyowry.
Swa that be north the month war nane.
Then thai his men war euirilkane.
His Lordschip wot ay mar and mar.
Towart Anguss syne gan he far;
And thoucht sone to mak all fre
That was on the north halff the Scottis Se.’
An interesting sidelight on the views I have advanced is that the only
two parliaments which Bruce held prior to Bannockburn met in the old
kingdom of Celtic Scotland, the one at St. Andrews in 1309 and the other
at Inverness in 1312. The latter was an exceedingly important
parliament, and one which would in ordinary circumstances have been held
in the capital of the kingdom. It was the parliament at which Bruce in
person met the envoys of the King of Norway and ratified with great
solemnity the treaty made between the Kings of Norway and Scotland in
1266. As befitted the occasion, Bruce was attended by a great retinue,
the most important members of which were witnesses to the treaty. They
were the Bishops of Aberdeen, Moray, Ross, and Caithness, and the Earls
of Ross, Athol, and Moray. Though the Earl of Moray was Thomas Randolph
the witnesses unmistakably are all representative of Celtic Scotland.
I do not desire to exaggerate the part played by the north of Scotland
in the War of Independence, nor to lay myself open to the charge of
holding a special brief for the Celts. But the facts I have stated show
how important was the part played by Celtic Scotland in the War of
Independence, and that it was the old kingdom of Celtic Scotland which
really maintained and ultimately won that struggle. For I think I have
shown that there is sound historical evidence for the view that in the
north of Scotland, Bruce found his earliest and staunchest supporters;
that the north declared for and stood by Bruce while the Lowlands were
as yet lukewarm or hostile; and that, therefore, to the north was his
ultimate success due.
Evan M. Barron.
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